Artist Interview with Wildwood Park for the Arts

Posted on September 18, 2015 by lksukany

As an Arkansas Arts Council Arts on Tour artist, I recently had an art exhibition at Wildwood Park for the Arts. I was interviewed shortly after the exhibition by Wildwood.

What mediums do you work with?
In printmaking, I work with relief printing (linoleum and woodcuts), etching, and lithography. With painting, I work with mostly oil, but at times with acrylic, gouache, and watercolor. I enjoy drawing with different types of charcoal, pencils, and ink. I experiment with fabrics, fibers, and natural materials (papermaking).

Besides your art practice, are you involved in any other kind of work?
I write and record music with my spouse in our band “The Damsels in Distress.” We mostly create albums, but have been working with KUAR Arts and Letters to create music for their productions. We also have created a children’s story called “The Boy and the Firefly” that has accompanying music. We hope to explore more bookmaking and song ideas to accompany puppet shows.

What does a typical day in the studio look like?
I have a large to-do list and organize the project for that day. I lay out the materials I will need in order, and then begin working in a linear way. So, if I am going back and forth with multiple pieces or projects, it’s all ordered in a list of what to work on for each piece. I often will have an audio book (fiction literature – mostly classic literature or adolescent literature) playing or an old black and white movie going on in the background. I am alone in my studio and cannot work with others in my space unless they are intently working on something as well.

What are you presently inspired by – are there particular things you are reading, listening to or looking at to fuel your work?
I am currently working on a Romania landscape painting series. It was inspired from a missions trip I went on last year with Livada Orphan Care to Targu Mures Romania. Because the region was mostly country side, we had to drive each day to the on-site work location. I was completely inspired by the beauty of the countryside and took many photographs during these drives. I hope to finish these paintings early next year, where I will photograph them to place into an inspirational prayer book and donate the paintings to Livada to sell for orphan sponsorship.

What do you hope your work will accomplish? How do you want people to be affected, if at all?
I hope to use my work to connect with and help others. I think for others to be affected by my work differs for each series I work on. For the “Maintaining Life” series, I hope people are able to see how even the mundane can be otherwise from an altered perspective.

How do you navigate the art world?
I still have a lot to learn about the “art world.” In the meantime, I will continue to create, blog on paperopera.com, and exhibit my work.

How would you define a “successful artist”?
Success is such a personal thing. For me, a “successful artist” is an artist who works, who likes their work, and who continues to challenge themselves in their work.

To see more of L.K. Sukany’s work, visit lksukany.wix.com/artist/.

You can also read the interview here.

KUAR Listening Party: Daniel Black, Arkansas Author

Posted on December 17, 2014 by lksukany

M and I recorded for the KUAR Arts and Letters – Arkansas Authors featuring Daniel Black show called “Daniel Black, Arkansas Author.” We worked on instrumental versions of The Boy with the Broom and Campfire Song.

Once everything was sent and mixed, we went to a small listening party with some of the people that worked on the show. M and I brought homemade caramel corn and hot chocolate with marshmallows. It was so much fun!

You can listen to “Daniel Black, Arkansas Author” on KUAR Arts and Letters. The songs are on The Damsels in Distress “Songs for KUAR Arts and Letters (2014)” album.

Clarinet Practice Routine

Posted on August 22, 2014 by lksukany

A musician’s practice schedule is a very personal thing. Everyone has their own expectations and motivations for practicing their instruments. In this post, Micah shares his practice routine.

Clarinet Practice Routine (Standard)

Long tones for information and tone – 5 minutes.
Chromatic scale for speed – 5 minutes. (132)
Major Scale of the Week – 10 minutes.
- F# major
Mechanical and Daily Excercise – 10 minutes.
- #47, #34 – 80 bpm
Sight Reading – 10 minutes.
Klose Etude #1 – 10 minutes.
Polkas – As much as you can stand.

Clarinet Practice Routine (Lazy)

Long tones for intonation and tone – 5 minutes.
Chromatic scale for speed – 5 minutes. (132)
Major scale of the week – 5 minutes.
Mechanical and daily exercises – 5 minutes.
Sight reading – 5 minutes.
Klose Etude #1 – 5 minutes.

Micah records parts of his practice so that he can hear where he needs improvement.

Sometimes Micah practices outside and Ein listens.

Here is a sample of what Micah’s practice generally sounds like.

Artist Interview: Micah

Posted on August 12, 2014 by lksukany

Micah Sukany is one of the creators at Paper Opera. He mostly works on the music side of things, though he does write as well.

Who are you and what do you do?
My name is Micah Sukany. I am one-half of The Damsels in Distress. I also write and record music that doesn’t make it as Damsels pieces. I didn’t self-identify as a musician until late last year. When the Damsels started getting money for pieces we recorded for a radio show, I thought, “Okay, I should probably take this seriously.”

What is your music process?
I work best and most often by recording. When recording, I have a musical idea and quickly document that. I generally work from those early, recorded fragments. I think the best things I’ve come up with is when I heard the part before I ever played the part. For “Father Priam” I heard that in my head in its entirety and I had to learn to play it – that’s the first time that’s ever happened.

Recording vs. performing?
Recording is exciting because I work to build upon layers, and I can hear everything. When performing I have to concentrate and be mindful of what I’m doing, so I don’t have time to enjoy or even listen. I’m just focused on keeping the tempo and playing the songs.

What is the biggest challenge of creating music and how do you deal with them?
The biggest challenge of creating music is finishing when I lose interest. I haven’t really figured out how to deal with this, so I have a lot of unfinished work. It’s hard to keep going, practicing, working, and reshaping something to be perfect when I lose interest part of the way through. That is a big struggle.

What do you like about your work?
I like that my work is mine. I write it to please myself. I have always written music for myself. I have always been my primary audience. If I don’t like what it sounds like, then it’s probably not that great. I like to make it. I like that I’ve made it. And sometimes, when it’s a song from a dream, I like to listen to something that came from a dream.

I like that me and L.K. make it together, that it is our music. I like it when people say, “that’s nice,” or “I liked that.” Also, when I hear our music in a recording or video, I think it sounds magical, and I like that we’ve created something mysterious.

What inspires your work?
I got tickets to the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Mahlers 5th. After that I was pretty fired up to do something better or different. It’s in the music we wrote for KUAR Arts and Letters Father’s Day show. Also, I wrote all of the instrumental recording for “Grown Ups” on the album “Spinning Plates” immediately after watching the Herzog film “Stroszek.”

What are your favorite inspirational places in Arkansas?
I like both the Big Dam bridge and the Two Rivers bridge. I also like driving quite a bit – the drive from Greenbrier to Harrison on 65, Little Rock to Stuttgart on 165, and I40 to Memphis are all great drives.

Who are your musical inspirations?
I really like John Lurie, the Lounge Lizards, and Fela Kuti, Africa 70, The Lovers (they are genuine and earnest both qualities I enjoy), Tasseomancy has a great aesthetic for me, and I’m always going to like folk music and European folk music.

I have always been a big fan of Subpop’s Mudhoney. Mudhoney has always been making the same kinds of music since their 20s, and they keep doing it because they like it, and I’ve always admired that they do what they like. I’ve always admired the people that played on Hearts of Space. I always thought Steven Reich was pretty smart. Like, one idea is interesting for the whole piece.

Beethoven is pretty important, especially for rock bands. Beethoven knew how to write parts.

When I think about what a good band should sound like, I think about Beethoven’s 5th symphony. Some times it’s just a single note played in a particular rhythm – just letting things be simple. Not an accompaniment pattern – just simple, like what needs to be there. It’s elegant. That’s what I think for musicians that are professionals.

What is integral to the work of a musician?
I think the audience is the number one important thing. You can be your own audience. The idea of the rock star or professional musician has distorted what musicians are in a community because they become the sellers of commodities, opposed to storytellers or someone that creates a space in which something happens. If you look at a healthy music community, like bluegrass or classical, the musicians are just as much their teachers and their students. Their identity is connected through other musicians as something they have received and as something they are passing on. The rock star doesn’t give anything in that sense, they just make money.

Discipline and a steady, stable process. The music process involves a lot of listening, internalizing, and applying in new contexts.

And he likes to read poetry!

What is your strongest poetry memory?
I went to a poetry reading at Juanita K. Hammons Hall for the Performing Arts in Springfield, Missouri. Up to that point, I mostly read poetry and didn’t realize that I was missing the sound or music of poetry as well as its drama. It didn’t hurt that the poetry was read by some award winning actors of the stage and screen.

Poetry has been definitive for me. I spent three or four years in undergraduate reading it almost exclusively.

The Mouthpiece Chooses the Musician

Posted on August 8, 2014 by lksukany

We caught wind of a potential clarinet find at an Pennsylvania Trading Co. estate sale. When we showed up, the clarinet wasn’t in very good condition, but there were around 15 mouthpieces all different styles and qualities.

We went back to our house to pick up M’s clarinet and then back to the estate sale this time to try out all of those mouthpieces.

M tried out every single one of them and picked three of his favorites: Vandoren, Stowell, and Selmer Magnitone.

M: The Vandoren, Stowell, and Selmer Magnatone all have a good natural intonation and there is not a lot of resistance. All of these clarinet mouthpieces play with great projection – moving fluidly through the registers. They all have a bright, round tone.

Vandoren B45 ($15) – M: The Vandoren is easy to play. A noted general mouthpiece – can please everyone and suits a variety of sounds and playing styles.

Stowell H2 Chicago ($76) – M: The Stowell is most lively and responsive. It can get a little out of hand because it is sensitive to embouchure and accepts a much harder reed than I use currently. The Stowell mouthpiece is responsive to articulation.

Selmer Magnitone New York ($125) – M: The Selmer Magnitone is the liveliest of the three. It is bright and round and really blows across all the registers.

When asked about advice M would give to those searching for their own mouthpieces he says, “In the end, the mouthpiece chooses the musician.”

Mouthpiece Holders DIY
I used an old Smartwool sock that didn’t have it’s match anymore and made two mouthpiece holders. I cut the sock in half and sewed the bottom of the top half. I inserted a cardboard piece in both sock halves. In the top half of the sock, I sewed on a button on the inside of the sock, and cut a button hole opening on the front. On the bottom half of the sock, I used fancy yarn from Munich to sew off the frayed part of the sock that was cut. I folded the heel of the sock over and cut a button hole. I sewed a button on the front of the sock, underneath the folded over heel.

Paper Opera

Art, music, and stories.

Tag Archives: Music